The Atomic Weight of Love (15 page)

Still, I could take it or leave it. I was not an alcoholic; I didn’t need the booze to function. I drank in context—that context being my drinking buddy, my “bad influence,” as Alden called Belle.

“Fuck all of them,” Belle said as we sat in one of our favorite spots in the canyon near the Quemazon Trail.

“Yes. Yes!” I shouted.

“Say it, Meri—you have to say the word.” She nudged my shoulder, her lipstick smeared far beyond the lines of her beautifully curved lips. “Say THE word, Meri.”

“Fuck.”

“Louder.”

“FUCK!”

“One more time!” she cheered.

“FUCKFUCKFUCK!” I roared into the twilit woods and heard deer skittering away across dry pine needles.

“Well done,” Belle said and lay back on the huge block of rock where we sat. Soon, she began to snore. I put my palm to the granite, felt the last remnants of the sun’s warmth emanating from the stone, traced the outline of a thunderbird chiseled into the rock by some long-ago Indian. What was the Indian legend about the thunderbird? Something about the beating of its enormous wings creating thunder and wind. I couldn’t remember. But who cared, anymore? Certainly, not I.

“PLEASE TELL ME YOU
did not.”

“I did. Belle and Butch are coming for dinner. Tomorrow night.” I enunciated each word clearly, the knife’s edge of a dare in my voice.

“Did you think for a moment that I’d enjoy an evening with a bellicose, gum-smacking drunkard and her plebian security-guard husband? A man who calls himself ‘Butch’?” Alden was tossing magazines and books off the end table. The pages splayed, crippled and awkward, when they hit the floorboards.

“What are you looking for?”

“Matches.”

“Use the lighter. It’s on the coffee table.”

“I don’t want to use the lighter. I want matches.”

“What’s the difference?” I walked toward the coffee table, prepared to plant the lighter in his palm, but Alden stepped into my path. He held my upper arms, looked me in the eye.

“You reek of booze.”

“That’s your imagination. I am not drunk.”

“Meri.” He shook me, once. “Meri, this has to stop. You have to stop this.”

“Give me one good reason why. Just one.” I felt my eyes narrow, my gaze harden.

“Because I asked you to.”

“You ask for far too many things. That’s just it.” I shook myself free of his hold, headed toward the refrigerator. I was going to make a shopping list, figure out what to make for the Jordans.

“What’s that supposed to mean—I
ask too much
? What are you talking about?”

I shut the refrigerator door, turned to face him. “You have to ask me? You don’t have a clue?”

“I don’t.”

“But you should.”

“But I don’t.”

I looked at my husband. His shoulders slumped, and he still had his security badge attached to his left shirt pocket, just below the plastic pocket protector in which he carried his mechanical pencils and a fountain pen that invariably bled blue ink. Alden had gained fifteen or more pounds since he quit hiking and going on adventures with me. I didn’t pity him, though. He looked weak, pasty, doughy. I closed my eyes to him.

Belle’s husband Butch had light blond hair and a prominent cowlick at the front where his hair parted, deep brown eyes, and the narrow waist and wide shoulders of an athlete. The night of my dinner party, he’d come from work and hadn’t had time to change out of his security guard uniform. The lightning bolt insignia on his sleeve, symbolic of atomic energy, kept drawing my attention. It seemed appropriate to the atmosphere in our living room—thick with ozone, tension building before a storm. He removed his revolver from his belt and put it on the coffee table. I saw Alden grimace.

Belle wore a blue and white gingham summer dress cinched tight at the waist. She carried a straw purse, and a charm bracelet jingled on her wrist. When she put her arm around my waist and gave me a kiss on the cheek, I could smell bourbon. She put a glass pie plate on the counter alongside the copy of
Tender Is the Night
that she’d promised to lend me.

“Oh, wonderful!” I said, adjusting the scarf I’d tied around my neck. I felt as if I were choking. “I’ve been wanting to reread it, now that I’m so much older and wiser.”

“I like it better than
Gatsby
. And that’s one of those banana cream pie things—you use vanilla wafers for the crust.” I could see how neatly she’d lined up the wafers, made a pretty pattern along the sides of the pie.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Professor Whetstone.” Butch put out his hand toward Alden, and Alden slowly put his hand into Butch’s.

“Alden. Just Alden is fine.”

“Alden it is, then.” Butch took a deep breath and looked around our living room. “You folks sure beat us on the point system.”

There weren’t enough houses for everyone who needed them, and so people were assigned points based upon seniority, job criticality. Alden’s status easily beat that of a security guard, and so the Jordans had to make do with temporary, inferior housing.

“I earned this place,” Alden said, clearly defensive.

“Well, sure, buddy. Don’t get me wrong. I take my hat off to you guys. The brains behind the operation,” Butch laughed.

I could see Alden’s jaw muscles tighten.

“Cocktails?” I intervened.

“A beer will do me just fine,” Butch said, lowering himself onto the couch. “Belle, you help out Miss Meri and get me a bottle, all right?”

“Yes, master,” Belle said, teasing. “Alden? What can I get you?”

“Meri knows what I want,” he said and sat in his reading chair across from Butch. He reached for his pipe.

After dinner, it felt as though Belle and I were performing a circus act—maybe a finely timed trapeze sequence. We struggled to cover our husbands’ pointed silences. Finally, Belle hit upon what she obviously thought was the perfect conversation starter.

“Meri, I’ve been trying to describe your crow research to Butch, but I know I haven’t done it justice. Tell us about it, will you?” She plumped up one of my maroon velveteen pillows to put at Butch’s feet, where she then sat.

I jostled my glass, tried to free the last quarter-inch of scotch from the maze of ice cubes. I looked at Belle, pleaded with my eyes for her to take another tack. I could feel Alden’s gaze as he waited to hear what I’d say.

“I’m looking at the collective behavior of the community,” I said, and sucked the rest of the liquor from my glass. “Over in Los Alamos Canyon.”

“Like what?” Butch asked. He rested his hand on the nape of Belle’s neck, began massaging the muscles there. Her eyes closed for a brief moment, and I looked away, not wanting to see any more of their intimacy. I’d lost track of when Alden and I had last made love.

“Nesting patterns. Whether a nest is reused, and by which birds. If and when the birds share food, in particular carrion.”

“Sounds a lot like what I do,” Butch laughed. “Observing the locals, checking out where they land, whether they get along. Helping the drunks get home to the right bed,” he said, winking at me. I blushed.

Alden stood and stretched. “Well, folks, it’s late.” He upended his pipe and banged out the ash. “Call it a night,” he murmured, as if to himself.

I was stunned, and Belle and I locked gazes. “We should be going anyway,” she said, putting the pillow back on the couch. “C’mon, old man.” She offered a hand to help Butch stand. He groaned, shook out the muscles of his legs.

“Again, so nice to meet you—Alden,” he said, remembering to be less formal. Alden shook the proffered hand.

Alden turned to Belle. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around,” he said, his hands on his hips.

“I hope so.” She picked up her purse. “Meri, just keep the pie—I’ll get the plate when you finish.” She kissed me on the cheek, and Butch gave one of my shoulders a squeeze. From the doorway, I watched him hold the car door for her, heard Alden in the bathroom behind me, the flush of the toilet. I waved good-bye and then began piling the dishes in the sink, waiting for hot water. I liked the ritual of washing dishes, the warm water, the suds. It relaxed me. I heard Alden’s footsteps behind me.

“Don’t do that again.” His voice was cold, commanding. I focused on my chore, kept my back to him. “We have nothing in common with people like that,” he continued. “For God’s sake, Meri, the man’s damned near illiterate, and she’s only got a bachelor’s degree.”

Your wife only has a bachelor’s degree
, I thought. “She’s my friend,” I said.

“Then be friends with her, but leave me out of the equation. Do not foist those people on me.”

“You were rude,” I said, finally turning to face him, letting my wet hands drip onto the linoleum. “You made absolutely no effort. I was embarrassed.”

“Me? I embarrassed you?”

“You did.”

“The man has all sorts of opinions, but none of them—not one—is supported by any kind of intelligent thought. That should embarrass you, that you, of all people, should choose to surround yourself with people like that.”

“He was trying to talk to you, and you froze him out.”

“He had nothing of substance to contribute. Nothing whatsoever. The man bored me to tears.”

“All I asked was that you be polite, that you make some effort,” I said and turned to let the water out of the sink. The drain made a loud, sucking noise. “You couldn’t do that one small thing. Not that one small thing,” I said, my back to him.

“You are on notice, Meri. Do not repeat tonight. I will not tolerate it.”

I rinsed out the dishcloth, made a point of wiping down the countertop.
Or what?
I wondered. What would Alden do to me? How could my life possibly be any worse than it was—this punishment, this stymied life?

I WENT BACK TO
the canyon and the crows. It was the only way I knew to hold on. Alden had spoken of Butch’s lack of academic rigor. I didn’t have that either, not in the way I wanted or that was expected of me by my fellow biologists—not without being able to band the birds, track individuals. Nevertheless, I told myself I would make do, my father’s prescription always resident in the back rooms of my mind.

BY OCTOBER,
THE MORNINGS
began more crisply, but the afternoon sun was still strong, viable, even in the deep reaches of the canyon. I was watching more than twenty crows sun themselves. They burrowed into the soft dirt, lowering their bellies into the warm soil, and then they spread their black wings to gather the heat. They entered a state of apparent torpor, languid with the sun. They panted, beaks open. It looked as though they’d been decimated by a single lightning bolt, but the snap of a twig beneath my boot sent them all instantly upright, vigilant.

There was one crow I found easily recognizable. He had a withered right foot that hung, bent and locked at the joint, just below his belly. I was impressed with his adaptability, the way he hopped, took off, and landed without wavering. Still, he had a diminished ability to feed himself adequately, to carry heavier pieces of foodstuffs. I saw other crows occasionally attentive, feeding him.

He mated—I saw him engaging in allopreening with another crow. He edged up to the female, used his beak to pick through her feathers to remove parasites, in particular from her head, a place she could not herself reach. I saw them so engaged in the trees, on the ground. At one point, the female used a downed limb to increase her height and make grooming of the handicapped crow’s head easier. They were sweet, intimate moments, and I would catch myself grinning with the joy of watching the pair cement their bond.

I thought about the trust inherent in permitting another to groom—and, in the case of crows, to permit a sharp beak to plunge beneath feathers that border vulnerable eyes. The family unit, of whatever composition, strengthens the likelihood of successful reproduction, the passing on of genetic material, of survival. But what if trust within the family disappears, if competition exceeds normal limits, creates insurmountable friction, maybe even peril? Recently, one of Butch’s fellow security guards had gone home and shot his wife, then himself. That woman had trusted her husband, thought that he would sweetly groom her and feed her foodstuffs. I knew how harshly Professor Matthews would criticize my expanding tendency for anthropomorphism, my comparisons between
Corvus
and the human animal. Still, I was at last thinking, wondering. It was a good sign.

Crows mate for life, although it does not stop them from mating with others from time to time. I have observed mated pairs interacting throughout the year, not just during mating season. They call to each other softly, and although they are already paired, committed, in the spring I have seen males diving and rolling in the air above their females, still and always trying to impress, to win her over yet again. Crows do not take each other for granted.

A Murmuration of Starlings

1. Flocks of starlings often fly in tight, cloud-like formations known as ‘murmurations.’

2. In Celtic mythology, Branwen, who was married to the King of Ireland, taught a starling to understand speech so that it could find her brother.

Alden was able to get us near the top of the waiting list for one of the new homes being built by Zia Company in the Western Area. The University of California continued to contract with the AEC to perform scientific work, but Zia Company took care of all of our other needs—much like the company towns associated with coal mining I’d known as a child in Pennsylvania. Zia ran the library, was responsible for street maintenance, the school payroll, and construction of the schools. We were like children—wholly cared for, our needs met, but with minimal choices.

Our new home was nicer than anyplace I’d ever before lived. It was composed of concrete block in a pseudo-adobe style, with vigas, hardwood floors, a stuccoed exterior, and a single-car carport. Belle pronounced it “entirely lovely, honey,” and then schooled me on the mysteries of paste wax and the heavy buffing machines I’d have to lug from Zia’s central offices to keep the hardwood floors in good shape. What I loved best was the fact that there were two rooms with corner windows that doubled the light. I laid the Navajo rug before our first fireplace, and within a few months we bought another hand-woven Indian rug—this one eight by ten feet in a black, white, and gray geometric pattern. I took a photo of it hanging on our clothesline to send to Mother, who could not understand why I thought the rug beautiful. She came from a world where oriental carpets were the crème de la crème, and my more ‘primitive’ weaving was a mystery to her.